Very sad to hear this. In mountain project,someone mentioned that he rap off the end of the line. is this confirmed ?

Wow. 19 is so young. This must be hitting his family and friends really hard right now. Condolences all around.

If he really did fall the reported 270 foot, it would be nearly impossible for the cause to be rapping off the end of a rope. That section of cliff is not much taller than 200 foot in most places. It seems more likely that the fall occurred from the anchor or cliff top.

My take was that he did not rap off the ends, rather he only threaded one strand through the belay device and fell from the anchors.

I agree. This is about the only way one could fall from the top of Sentinel. Rapping off the ends from that anchor, you would only fall 10 ft or so onto the crow's nest and it would be almost impossible to fall the rest of the way to the ground.

My take was that he did not rap off the ends, rather he only threaded one strand through the belay device and fell from the anchors.

I agree. This is about the only way one could fall from the top of Sentinel. Rapping off the ends from that anchor, you would only fall 10 ft or so onto the crow's nest and it would be almost impossible to fall the rest of the way to the ground.

It is around 200 ft to the ground from the top anchor. There is a large ledge at 110ft that you rap to, walk across and then rap another ~80 to the ground. If you were to rap off the ends of the rope from the top anchor, you would fall onto this ledge and it would only be about 10ft. It would be virtually impossible to miss the ledge if this was the case. The only way to come up with a fall anywhere near 200ft would be to fall from the top of the cliff and go all the way to the ground. The most likely scenario for such a fall would be to only clip one strand of the rope into the rap device and then begin to rappel.

I always keep a couple of shoulder length slings with me. I rappel tons for work. What I do is to girth hitch a sling or two together from my harness. Then I clip the anchor with the sling(s) that are girth hitched to my harness.

Next I set up my rap and test it. The worst case is if I blow the setup, I only take a short static fall on the sling(s) girth hitched to my Harness. Once I AM SURE THE SYSTEM IS CORRECTLY SETUP, I DISCONNECT THE "TETHER" and start the rap.

This is the best and in my opinion, the only way to safely setup a rap and know that you won't end up on the deck from a screw up.

It's easy to screw up, and it's also easy to use this system so you don't end up on the ground in a bad way.

You must be reading a different article to me. As far as I can see this is consistent with the climber not threading both sides of the rope.

socalclimber wrote:

Here's how you make sure this doesn't happen to you.

Agreed. There is no excuse not to weight your rappel while still safe. Every year there are a good half dozen of accidents reporting on this forum that would be prevented by this simple technique. Lives can be saved.

Below is a personal account of the accident that I received from one of Eric's partners. Per the family's request, I've been holding onto this message for a while, giving them time to grieve and prepare themselves for the techinical details of the accident.

"Eric was going to be the first to rappel down to the landing of Sentinel Butress. I don't know if you know the climb, but it is two pitches. The first is ~150ft and the second is ~100ft. I know this climb was nearly second nature for Eric, but on Sunday we were using my friend Mitchell's rope instead of Eric's. Mitchell's rope was a good bit shorter, and lacked a mid-way marker, but we knew that it should have reached even when doubled over. Eric did a quick check to make sure the ropes were the same length and told us, "I can see both ends of the rope" before he started his descent. None of us know exactly what happened, but what makes the most sense to me is that these two ends were not quite the same length. The next thing we knew, an end of the rope whipped through the bolt and my friend Mitchell saw Eric laying on the landing. I don't think that he fell more than 30 ft or so, and we could hear him moaning loudly. A few seconds later he slipped off and fell more than the remaining pitch. It was quite a freak accident. It is sad to think that he may have been alright after his first fall, but unfortunately he did not realize the danger he was in. I quickly ran to help him and felt his last heartbeat, but I regret to say that I wasn't able to save him. It is quite difficult to lose a friend, but it eases the pain to know that he died happily doing what he loved."

Below is a personal account of the accident that I received from one of Eric's partners. Per the family's request, I've been holding onto this message for a while, giving them time to grieve and prepare themselves for the techinical details of the accident.

"Eric was going to be the first to rappel down to the landing of Sentinel Butress. I don't know if you know the climb, but it is two pitches. The first is ~150ft and the second is ~100ft. I know this climb was nearly second nature for Eric, but on Sunday we were using my friend Mitchell's rope instead of Eric's. Mitchell's rope was a good bit shorter, and lacked a mid-way marker, but we knew that it should have reached even when doubled over. Eric did a quick check to make sure the ropes were the same length and told us, "I can see both ends of the rope" before he started his descent. None of us know exactly what happened, but what makes the most sense to me is that these two ends were not quite the same length. The next thing we knew, an end of the rope whipped through the bolt and my friend Mitchell saw Eric laying on the landing. I don't think that he fell more than 30 ft or so, and we could hear him moaning loudly. A few seconds later he slipped off and fell more than the remaining pitch. It was quite a freak accident. It is sad to think that he may have been alright after his first fall, but unfortunately he did not realize the danger he was in. I quickly ran to help him and felt his last heartbeat, but I regret to say that I wasn't able to save him. It is quite difficult to lose a friend, but it eases the pain to know that he died happily doing what he loved."

Is the second pitch 150ft from the ground or 150ft total(above the first 100ft pitch)?

This email makes it a little confusing. The actual route "sentinel buttress" 1st pitch is about 80 ft and ends on a large ledge called the Crows Nest. Many routes end on this ledge and you could rap back to the ground in about 80 ft. Some of these other routes (eg Superdirect) are more like 120 ft to the Crows Nest and these are in direct line with the second pitch. The 2nd pitch is a little more than 100 ft. Typically, when rapping with a 60m rope the 1st rap (2nd pitch) back to Crows Nest comes up 5-10ft short and you have down limb just a bit of easy terrain, although some long 60m ropes have gotten me all the way. The Crows Nest is a good sized ledge, maybe 10-12ft deep and 20 ft wide and is large enough to comfortably and safely walk around on unroped. The typical rap is 80 ft from the Crows Nest to the ground, but a direct line to the ground (opposite side of the ledge from the rappel) is more like 120-150 ft.

That does sound like only one side of the rope was through the rappel device.

Again, my condolences to all family and friends.

Yes but it also says that he likely fell less than 30 ft. and the length of the rope and lack of middle mark was definitely emphasized. It would appear that he somehow rapped off the end of one strand and fell far enough to cause the loose end to pull thru the anchor.

That does sound like only one side of the rope was through the rappel device.

Again, my condolences to all family and friends.

Yes but it also says that he likely fell less than 30 ft. and the length of the rope and lack of middle mark was definitely emphasized. It would appear that he somehow rapped off the end of one strand and fell far enough to cause the loose end to pull thru the anchor.

When in doubt, knot the ends.

Yes, your right. I must of glossed over the underlined part of your response above.

First off, I am so sorry to hear about this horrible accident. My condolences to the family, friends, and especially those climbers who were at the scene. It must have been so painful to witness this happen to a friend.

I am just curious to know how the other climbers were able to get down if the fallen climber took the rope with him. It is described as the rope going whipping through the bolt. I assume that means the rope was pulled through the anchor?

they should add the rope and drop it off the anchor just to confirm it was short by 30 feet.

There is almost no way a rope could be short by 30 ft unless it was not even. A 60 m rope is short by 10 ft at the most. I guess if it was a 50m rope that would make it an extra 5m higher and make it ~25ft short to the ledge. But in any case, the rope would have to really be uneven to pull one side down and cause the rope to pull through the anchor.